1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to devices for handling cards, including cards known as “playing cards”. In particular, the invention relates to an electromechanical machine for organizing or arranging playing cards into a plurality of hands, wherein each hand is formed as a selected number of randomly arranged cards. The invention also relates to a mechanism for feeding cards into a shuffling apparatus and also to a method of delivering individual hands from the apparatus to individual players or individual player positions.
2. Background of the Art
Wagering games based on the outcome of randomly generated or selected symbols are well known. Such games are widely played in gaming establishments such as casinos and the wagering games include card games wherein the symbols comprise familiar, common playing cards. Card games such as twenty-one or blackjack, poker and variations of poker and the like are excellent card games for use in casinos. Desirable attributes of casino card games are that the games are exciting, they can be learned and understood easily by players, and they move or are played rapidly to a wager-resolving outcome.
From the perspective of players, the time the dealer must spend in shuffling diminishes the excitement of the game. From the perspective of casinos, shuffling time reduces the number of hands placed, reduces the number of wagers placed and resolved in a given amount of time, thereby reducing revenue. Casinos would like to increase the amount of revenue generated by a game without changing games, particularly a popular game, without making obvious changes in the play of the game that affect the hold of the casino, and without increasing the minimum size of wagers. One approach to speeding play is directed specifically to the fact that playing time is decreased by shuffling and dealing events. This approach has lead to the development of electromechanical or mechanical card shuffling devices. Such devices increase the speed of shuffling and dealing, thereby increasing playing time. Such devices also add to the excitement of a game by reducing the time the dealer or house has to spend in preparing to play the game.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,513,969 (Samsel, Jr.) and U.S. Pat. No. 4,515,367 (Howard) disclose automatic card shufflers. The Samsel, Jr. patent discloses a card shuffler having a housing with two wells for receiving stacks of cards. A first extractor selects, removes and intermixes the bottommost card from each stack and delivers the intermixed cards to a storage compartment. A second extractor sequentially removes the bottommost card from the storage compartment and delivers it to a typical shoe from which the dealer may take it for presentation to the players. The Howard patent discloses a card mixer for randomly interleaving cards including a carriage supported ejector for ejecting a group of cards (approximately two playing decks in number) which may then be removed manually from the shuffler or dropped automatically into a chute for delivery to a typical dealing shoe.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,586,712 (Lorber et al.) discloses an automatic shuffling apparatus designed to intermix multiple decks of cards under the programmed control of a computer. The Lorber et al. apparatus is a carousel-type shuffler having a container, a storage device for storing shuffled playing cards, a removing device and an inserting device for intermixing the playing cards in the container, a dealing shoe and supplying means for supplying the shuffled playing cards from the storage device to the dealing shoe.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,000,453 (Stevens et al.) discloses an apparatus for automatically shuffling cards. The Stevens et al. machine includes three contiguous magazines with an elevatable platform in the center magazine only. Unshuffled cards are placed in the center magazine and the spitting rollers at the top of the magazine spit the cards randomly to the left and right magazines in a simultaneous cutting and shuffling step. The cards are moved back into the center magazine by direct lateral movement of each shuffled stack, placing one stack on top of the other to stack all cards in a shuffled stack in the center magazine. The order of the cards in each stack does not change in moving from the right and left magazines into the center magazine.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,897,954 (Erickson et al.) discloses the concept of delivering cards one at a time, into one of a number vertically stacked card-shuffling compartments. The Erickson patent also discloses using a logic circuit to determine the sequence for determining the delivery location of a card, and that a card shuffler can be used to deal stacks of shuffled cards to a player. U.S. Pat. No. 5,240,140 (Huen) discloses a card dispenser which dispenses or deals cards in four discrete directions onto a playing surface, and U.S. Pat. No. 793,489 (Williams), U.S. Pat. No. 2,001,918 (Nevius), U.S. Pat. No. 2,043,343 (Warner) and U.S. Pat. No. 3,312,473 (Friedman et al.) disclose various card holders some of which include recesses (e.g., Friedman et al.) to facilitate removal of cards. U.S. Pat. No. 2,950,005 (MacDonald) and U.S. Pat. No. 3,690,670 (Cassady et al.) disclose card-sorting devices that require specially marked cards, clearly undesirable for gaming and casino play.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,770,421 (Hoffman) discloses a card-shuffling device including a card loading station with a conveyor belt. The belt moves the lowermost card in a stack onto a distribution elevator whereby a stack of cards is accumulated on the distribution elevator. Adjacent to the elevator is a vertical stack of mixing pockets. A microprocessor preprogrammed with a finite number of distribution schedules sends a sequence of signals to the elevator corresponding to heights called out in the schedule. Each distribution schedule comprises a preselected distribution sequence that is fixed as opposed to random. Single cards are moved into the respective pocket at that height. The distribution schedule is either randomly selected or schedules are executed in sequence. When the microprocessor completes the execution of a single distribution cycle, the cards are removed a stack at a time and loaded into a second elevator. The second elevator delivers cards to an output reservoir. Thus, the Hoffman patent requires a two-step shuffle, i.e., a program is required to select the order in which stacks are loaded and moved onto the second elevator and delivers a shuffled deck or decks. The Hoffman patent does not disclose randomly selecting a location within the vertical stack for delivering each card. Nor does the patent disclose a single stage process that randomly delivers hands of shuffled cards with a degree of randomness satisfactory to casinos and players. Further, there is no disclosure in the Hoffman patent about how to deliver a preselected number of cards to a preselected number of hands ready for use by players or participants in a game. Another card handling apparatus with an elevator is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,683,085 (Johnson et al.). U.S. Pat. No. 4,750,743 (Nicoletti) discloses a playing card dispenser including an inclined surface and a card pusher for urging cards down the inclined surface.
Other known card shuffling devices are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,778,644 (Stephenson), U.S. Pat. No. 4,497,488 (Plevyak et al.), U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,807,884 and 5,275,411 (both Breeding) and U.S. Pat. No. 5,695,189 (Breeding et al.). The Breeding patents disclose machines for automatically shuffling a single deck of cards including a deck-receiving zone, a carriage section for separating a deck into two deck portions, a sloped mechanism positioned between adjacent corners of the deck portions, and an apparatus for snapping the cards over the sloped mechanism to interleave the cards.
The Breeding single deck shufflers used in connection with LET IT RIDE®) Stud Poker are programmed to first shuffle a deck of cards, and then sequentially deliver hands of a preselected number of cards for each player. LET IT RIDE® stud poker is the subject of U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,288,081 and 5,437,462 (Breeding), which are herein incorporated by reference. The Breeding single deck shuffler delivers three cards from the shuffled deck in sequence to a receiving rack. The dealer removes the first hand from the rack. Then, the next hand is automatically delivered. The dealer inputs the number of players, and the shuffler deals out that many hands plus a dealer hand. The Breeding single deck shufflers are capable of shuffling a single deck and delivering seven player hands plus a dealer hand in approximately 60 seconds. The Breeding shuffler is a complex electromechanical device that requires tuning and adjustment during installation. The shufflers also require periodic adjustment. The Breeding et al. device, as exemplified in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,068,258; 5,695,189; and 5,303,921 are directed to shuffling machines for shuffling multiple decks of cards with three magazines wherein unshuffled cards are cut then shuffled.
Although the devices disclosed in the preceding patents, particularly the Breeding machines, provide improvements in card shuffling devices, none discloses or suggests a device and method for providing a plurality of hands of cards, wherein the hands are ready for play and wherein each comprises a randomly selected arrangement of cards, without first randomly shuffling the entire deck. A device and method which provides a plurality of ready-to-play hands of a selected number of randomly arranged cards at a greater speed than known devices without shuffling the entire deck or decks would speed and facilitate the casino play of card games.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,149,154 describes an apparatus for moving playing cards from a first group of cards into plural groups, each of said plural groups containing a random arrangement of cards, said apparatus comprising: a card receiver for receiving the first group of unshuffled cards; a single stack of card-receiving compartments generally adjacent to the card receiver, said stack generally adjacent to and movable with respect to the first group of cards; and a drive mechanism that moves the stack by means of translation relative to the first group of unshuffled cards; a card-moving mechanism between the card receiver and the stack; and a processing unit that controls the card-moving mechanism and the drive mechanism so that a selected quantity of cards is moved into a selected number of compartments.